


How to say I love you

by Laramie



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-03 22:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4117804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laramie/pseuds/Laramie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas meets a German soldier and they teach each other a few things.</p><p>Years later, Jimmy reads something he likes but doesn't understand. Thomas can help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to say I love you

**Author's Note:**

> So much of this is lifted directly from impala's suggestions (http://marshallismyname.tumblr.com/post/121214945958) that I almost feel that I should give her co-author credit.
> 
> Also many thanks to Abby for her help with making the German right and the English realistically wrong.
> 
> Info about troop relations from here: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/422689/Meeting-the-enemy-Tales-of-extraordinary-camaraderie-between-British-and-German-soldiers
> 
> Anyways, hope you all enjoy. This is the first war-related fic I've ever written and hopefully the last.

**1914**

 

What people who had not been in the War never realised was that, sometimes, one met the other side. And not in the heat of battle when one's only aim was to kill or be killed, but in quieter moments too. Thomas had heard of a group of German officers who crossed the lines every night for a game of bridge. But then, that was the aristocracy for you.

However, even the lowly privates had contact; Thomas knew of a Devonshire man named Johnson who had a book-swapping arrangement with a private on the other side.

Thomas had been in the trenches for five months, two weeks and four days when he had his own close encounter with the enemy. For months, there had been a German corporal who, after every battle, had shouted "send out your medic!" as an unofficial truce while the injured were collected. Once, he had jumped out with his medical staff to help them carry. He had crossed paths with Thomas, shooting him a smile as they went about their work.

Thereafter he shouted "send out your pretty medic!"

The first time, there had been a sharp word of German reprimand from a higher-up, floating across the bare 150 yards between them. The corporal had said something in response; the tone sounded as though he had said something like, _'Well, he is, I'm not lavender'_. Thomas had blushed right to the roots of his hair. He hoped nobody would notice his red face as he climbed over the top and went to pick up the smashed-up bodies of men who had only hours ago been healthy and whole.

After two months of every battle ending with "send out your pretty medic!", the day came when it stopped. The British soldiers had glanced at one another, feeling odd and adrift.

When Thomas got to the field hospital, the German corporal was there, on a chair. Thomas stared at the man until he looked up and grinned. "Hallo, hübscher Sanitäter."

"Hello, Fritz."

His right leg finished mid-calf. "I am here of… not intending," he said slowly as Thomas knelt down in front of him to clean the stump. He muttered something in German, looking frustrated. "My English is bad."

"My German is worse," Thomas offered.

The corporal smiled again, making his eyes crinkle at the corners despite the painful pallor of his face. "Ja, dein Deutsch ist schlecht. But now you know hübscher Sanitäter - pretty medic. And here are you. You - er - you make me know English?"

"You want me to teach you English?"

"Ja, please. I will make it that you like it. No - lohnend. Es wird sich für dich lohnen."

Thomas may not understand German, but he understood subtext, and this was loaded with it. There was a spark of mischief in the corporal's eyes as they flickered over Thomas's body.

"Very well," he agreed. "We'll have to find somewhere quiet. So you can concentrate." He made sure to smile into the corporal's eyes so that there was no doubt.

They met in the store room that night. Thomas laid out a slightly bloodstained blanket on the ground. Fritz - he did not know the corporal's name - begged a smoke by way of miming, then leaned back against one of the shelves.

"How say you Decke?" he asked, pointing.

"Blanket."

"Ah." He asked several more as he smoked, pointing at the objects around them and saying their German names. Thomas told him the English and smoked his own cigarette.

When his cigarette had turned to ash, Fritz ground it out on the bottom shelf and turned to lean into Thomas's space. "Und how say you berühre mich?" he whispered, putting one hand firmly over Thomas's hip.

Thomas breathed quickly and let his head fall back.

Afterwards, the corporal said playfully, "I learn many from you, Tommy, eh? Nein, viel, viel - ah, I learn a lot."

"Was that your first time?" Thomas asked, surprised. The corporal's confidence - before and during - had seemed to indicate that he was experienced.

"With a man, yes. I have with a woman."

"I see."

"Are you… sad?" Fritz screwed up his face, as though that wasn't the question he was trying to ask at all.

"It doesn't bother me, if that's what you mean." Fritz still looked confused. "It's fine," Thomas clarified, smiling.

"Ah, gut. Du bist süß, Tommy. Ich wünschte nur, es wäre einfacher. Krieg macht aus uns allen Narren."

He sounded gloomy, so Thomas patted him on the hand, feeling worn skin next to rough new pyjamas.

They met every night for the next five days. Thomas never did learn the corporal's name - he called him Fritz, and Fritz called him Tommy or pretty medic. They never undressed further than necessary, and they never kissed. Neither of them were under the delusion that this was some great romance; it was loneliness and kinship and connection.

"How do you say I love you to a friend?" Fritz asked one night, after they had touched each other. They had sat for a while, chatting idly and with no great intimacy.

"It's just I love you," Thomas said, wishing he had someone he wanted to say that to. He still wrote to Miss O'Brien but he would not want to say that he loved her.

"No, to a friend."

"Yes. It's the same."

"You have no… It's the same? It is why that you are all so angry, if you cannot say you love your friends."

"What is it in German, then?" Thomas asked, too tired to be offended. He had been awake for 24 hours now.

"Ich hab dich lieb."

"Ich…"

"Ich. Hab. Dich. Lieb."

"Ich hab dich lieb."

Fritz smiled, and although the corporal was sent to the prisoner of war camp the very next day, Thomas always looked back fondly on this moment. "I think you need a word for ich hab dich lieb, Tommy."

 

-

 

**1922**

 

Jimmy sighed loudly. His music magazine had begun featuring a general-knowledge quiz in the puzzles section, alongside the crossword. He was stuck.

He stared at the question for a while. _In what year was Frankenstein published?_

He didn't even know where to start. His eyes wandered over the page, falling on the answers for last week's questions.

  1. _Three._
  2. _1789._
  3. _A cat._
  4. _Ich hab dich lieb._



That was an interesting answer. His last issue had gone astray, so Jimmy did not know what the question had been. It sounded good, though, sort of… rhythmic. The servants hall was deserted, so he tried saying it aloud: "Itch hab ditch libe."

It got stuck in his head after that, and he found himself still muttering it on a loop when Thomas came downstairs to get himself a cup of tea. Jimmy tapped the table and wondered if the words were a line in a song.

-

Thomas sat across from Jimmy and slid a cup of tea across the table.

"Thanks."

Jimmy looked distracted, staring down at his magazine and murmuring what sounded like "itch hab ditch libe" repeatedly. It took a while for Thomas to work out what he was saying, but eventually he remembered a German corporal and a phrase that had stuck with him ever since.

"You're saying it wrong."

"What?"

"It's ich hab dich lieb," Thomas said, trying to make it sound as beautiful as Fritz had.

"Oh. How do you know?"

"It's German. I learnt it in the war."

"What's it mean?"

"It's a way of telling a friend that you love them. And it's only for a friend, not a lover."

Jimmy twisted his mouth, and Thomas prayed that he would not say, "sounds soppy to me". He was like that, sometimes, but Thomas liked the phrase.

Happily, Jimmy said nothing about it. "When was Frankenstein published?"

Thomas shrugged. "Early last century or something like that."

"Hmm."

Thomas watched him rolling the end of the pencil around his lips. Then Jimmy drank his tea and stood up, gathering up his pencil and magazine. He left the cup as he made his way out.

"Thomas?"

Thomas turned to see that Jimmy had paused in the doorway.

"Yes?"

Jimmy glanced back and smiled fondly. Lights twinkled in his eyes. "Ich hab dich lieb."

He was gone before Thomas could react.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wish I had kept Thomas's relationship with Fritz as a friendship, but the image I got was of Thomas smoking in bed with a German soldier who was asking how to say ich hab dich lieb in English. So that's how I wrote it.
> 
> Platonic I love yous ftw!


End file.
